I personally love the Lord of the Rings.  I have only watched the movie, and I have not read the book.  I’m sure the book is a wonderful thing, but I have not read it.  As for the movie, I love it.

I had a friend once tell me that the movie was ridicules because it left out so many things from the book.  That statement greatly irked me.  Books and movies aren’t the same media.  Nowhere near.  Books use words and the imagination of the author and reader to create a story, a world, and a life.  Movies have to create what is unlimited for the imagination.  But movies are wonderful tools to present a story, and the Lord of the Rings did an epic job of doing so.  I was just watching some of the bonus features on the extended edition of the movie, and I watch all the effort they put in to make a world, and how much respect they have for the book.  It is amazing, and for people to sham it because it inserted and took out some stuff is just ridicules.  Movies are different then things.  Movies show people things.  Books tell you things.